Brazil

“Who controls the web? On whose behalf? How free are we really to access content?” These are questions that are being asked and answered by a global, crowd-sourced film project. Instituto Nupef, APC member in Brazil, has launched a collaborative documentary film project.

The Women of Expression theme for 2013 is Women and the Internet. The development of information and communication technologies in recent decades has revolutionized the way people communicate and express their ideas.

The Association for Progressive Communications has started a project called Connect Your Rights! in early 2011. Meant to make the links between fundamental human rights offline and online, it published an infographic in mid-2012 to offer a visualization of the impact that the internet provokes on the human rights regime. After a successful first run in social media and at events worldwide, the infographic was translated to Portuguese by Brazilian group NUPEF.

The problem of internet access in a country the size of Brazil is as complex as its geography or its population. The government is currently working on a national broadband plan which would establish high-speed fibre optic connections in the major cities. In order to reach the most distant towns, signals transmitted over the air will be used (through waves that circulate on a set frequency or spectrum). In this article we will review the trends in Brazil regarding regulation of this resource.

For about 75 years up to the sixties, nearly all telecommunications services in the country were in private hands, distributed among hundreds of local operators. Telephony authorizations were issued and controlled by the state governments. In this process Companhia Telefônica Brasileira (CTB, a subsidiary of the Canadian company Brazilian Traction) emerged as a major operator of local and long-distance services in the majority of the larger Brazilian cities, covering about 80% of the telephone terminals in the country. CTB shared the market in these cities with Companhia Telefônica Nacional, CTN, an ITT3 subsidiary. The remaining cities and towns were covered by small local operators in extremely precarious situations.

RIO DE JANEIRO30 April 2010
(CLAM and Sex Politics Watch for GenderIT.org)

Proposals to fight cybercrime have been floating around in Brazil for more than a decade but the backers – primarily banks and music companies worried about internet fraud and unauthorised music sharing – couldn’t find public or parliamentary support till they switched their focus to child pornography. Lula has refused to sanction online censorship and the government has opened a public consultation on what a civil law to regulate the internet should look like. EroTICs researchers Corrêa, Maria and Queiroz explore the history of the Brazilian regulation debate and conclude that the time is ripe to talk about rights – and for feminists and sexual rights activists to get involved. Photo: “Mike Vondran”:http://www.flickr.com/people/over_kind_man/

APC workshop: APC workshopAPC announces a one-day event on equitable access to ICT infrastructure for 10 November 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This event will bring together innovative minds and experience in developing and implementing ICT policy and technology solutions for low-cost access and connectivity.